AUTUMN IN THE WOODS

There’s something a bit magical about Autumn in the woods isn’t there?

The crunchy leaves, the natural warm colours of the season, that slight nip in the air.

I love standing beneath the trees as the beautiful crisp leaves fall down all around you, and it’s so lovely wrapping up all snug and warm in cosy knits and big chunky jumpers and getting to rediscover your inner child by kicking up some leaves and dancing in muddy puddles.

Our local woods are really enchanting. Hidden amongst some of the trees, you find these quirky faces that have been etched into old tree stumps.

There is something a little bit eery about them, but they’re so beautiful. They look like they belong in a storybook and they wouldn’t look amiss in a Godswood if you’re a Game Of Thrones fan.

The local residents (aka the squirrels) are super friendly too. As soon as your feet pass the gate into the woods they’re upon you, checking out if you have any food.

As cute as they are, we always air a bit of caution and never let Evie touch them. Although that’s pretty hard to do because some of them stalk you and chase you up and down the pathways. One even ran up my leg once and clutched onto me, which was pretty terrifying at the time. I’m a woose.

We’re planning on doing some leaf crafts this week to tie in with the autumn themed reading and autumn crafts that we’ve been doing with Evie. A quick pitstop to our local woods has been on the cards for a while.

But no trip to the woods would be complete without foraging, puddle jumping, visiting the ducks, picnics (in Autumn it just has to be a pasty)…

…and leaf throwing.

I really need to learn the settings on my camera to capture this properly. I’d love it if there pictures weren’t so blurry. Do you have any tips for this?

My sister and her new, beautiful little baby came to the woods with us today and all of us (bar the baby of course) joined in with the leaf throwing. It was such a giggle.

At one point my sister snuck up on Jamie and absolutely covered him in leaves much to Evie’s amusement.

We came with the intention that Evie would have a good run about, but apart from leaf throwing, she was obsessed with helping my sister Hayley push the baby. She got so cross every time we tried to get her to join in with leaf collecting (what we came for) or anything else.

Even when we stopped off for a tea break she insisted on holding onto the pram to make sure the baby was ok.

How cute is little Amelia? She’s so small and squishy! It’s so crazy how fast they grow. It doesn’t seem like yesterday that Evie was like this.

The woods is always a great trip out isn’t it? One big bag full of leaves and a tired toddler later, we decided it was time to head home despite being so sad to have to leave.

It was so peaceful in the woods today and we could have walked about for hours. But I’m so glad we got to share our mini adventure out with my sister. We can’t wait till Amelia is old enough to don some wellies and join in with Evie stomping about in the puddles.

Do you have a local woods that you visit often? Have you got any leaf craft suggestions? What’s your favourite season in the woods?

67 Comments

Lovely woods and photos! I think to get clearer floaty leaves its a case of increasing your shutter speed which should be quite an easy setting to alter 🙂
Amelia is crazy cute! ( so is Evie, of course!! )
Abel x

Thank you so, so much for the advice!! I’m definitely going to have a play about with the shutter speed. I’m a complete novice when it comes to photos. I’d love to do a little course. Aww Amelia is so sweet. I can’t wait till they’re old enough to play together. x

I’ve heard people do let their children touch them which is a bit horrifying because they are wild and you don’t know what they have or if they’ll bite. But they are super cute at the same time. Thank you so much for your lovely comment. x

What a beautiful place! Where I grew up in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (Canada) the trees would change into the most beautiful rainbow of colours. I loved the smell of the Autumn woods. We don’t really have any forests where I live, just a few groups of trees here and there, and the leaves don’t change colour – the wind tears them off the trees first. I miss trees!

Ohhh I really couldn’t be away from trees. I just googled where you used to live. Oh my gosh it’s so, so stunning! You are so lucky to have gotten to grow up there! I bet it smelt so good and I can only imagine how beautiful it must have been to experience the colours in person. The pictures look incredible. x

If you have an SLR or bridge adjust your shutter speed to a higher number – the slower it is the more blurred the shot, you may find that the aperture needs adjusting as the quicker the shutter speed the less light gets into the shot. Thats as technical as I get 😉 Autumn really is my favourite time of year and forget the family, I LOVE kicking leaves! Loving the ;last photo by the way. Thanks for hosting x

Thank you so, so much! I’m going to have a play with that first thing in the morning. I am a complete novice when it comes to photography but I have a feeling that’ll definitely help me to get rid of the blur. Autumn is so, so beautiful isn’t it? Any excuse to wear lots of chunky cosy layers. x

It’s so simple but so much fun isn’t it? Haha she is obsessed with babies. We haven’t encouraged it either because we want her to play with both boys and girls toys (she doesn’t own a doll yet either) but she always charges around our house pretending her shopping trolley is a pram and lying her teddy bears down in it. So cute! x

I probably say this at the start of every new season…but I think Autumn I s definitely my favourite time of year! wrapped up days out, cosy days in…they all seem magical after the novelty of our (British) summer has worn off. looks like the perfect day…particularly the pasty! X #whatevertheweather x MMT (Sarah)

Haha i’m the same. I love every season when it comes around. Autumn is so lovely, when the rain stays away! It really feels so warm and lovely. I think if we’d had a great summer I might be a bit more sad to be in Autumn. Thank you so much for your comment. x

It really is perfect isn’t it. Unlike our summer this year, you can go out wearing an outfit and it’ll be appropriate! The amount of times in summer I went out in a dress and ended up shivering or rained on. At least in Autumn you know what you’re going to get! And nothing beats wrapping up all cosy. x

The wood carvings are brilliant, must be lovely coming across them. And your niece is adorable – be lovely for Evie to have a cousin to grow up with who is so close in age (and for you and your sister!)

Wow – what a picturesque area to go for a walk in. Good luck with the leaf crafts – sounds like a great idea – maybe I will try that with my little one. Thanks for sharing – such cute pictures too – looks like you had a great time!

Thank you so much! 😀 It’s such a nice time of year to do it isn’t it. Although I find that every single season is so beautiful for walks in the woods. It’s incredible just how different the feeling is but in exactly the same place. Winter full of frost and sparse trees, spring full of life, colour and fresh air and summer full of noise and a great place to cool off and get some shade from the scorching sun. x

What a beautiful place, love the super friendly squirrels too! Ours aren’t so tame, even in the park near us in the middle of town-you’d think they’d be used to people! I love this time of year so much, we’ve been out walking in woods lately-nothing beats it 🙂 #whatevertheweather

These squirrels are very much like seagulls and cats, if they so much as get a hint of food then they’re over. But you would think all squirrels in public parks would be friendly wouldn’t you. It’s such a lovely time of year for a fresh walk isn’t it. You can’t beat it. Not too hot, not too cold. x

Looks like a wonderful walk in the woods! We often visit our local woods too. Especially lovely that we’ve been able to enjoy some Autumnal sunshine isn’t it? Intrigued to know what you’re going to do with the leaves…
Jenni

Thank you so much for your comment. Autumnal sunshine has definitely been much appreciated.We’ve been given some great ideas for the leaves and are thinking about painting them gold and turning them into a garland or sticking them to paper as a little hedgehog bed and creating a little hedgehog to stick on top. Or maybe both! 😀 x

We love walking in the woods, one of our favourite things, We’re lucky that we have several lovely places near us. Love your photos, crunching through leaves in the autumn is fabulous, as is throwing them 🙂

It’s fun for all ages isn’t it and so nice to be outside. Wow you really are lucky to have a variety. We’d love to change things up a bit. Our local woods are the only ones around for miles and miles and although they’re so beautiful they do get rather crowded on certain days and in holidays. x

This looks like a lovely day… though I would be a bit terrified of those squirrels too! Yikes 🙂 We have a local park we visit a lot (as you’ll see from my post). I love this time of year and all the beautiful Autumn colours.

The colours really are beautiful aren’t they and so calming to look at. I can’t wait to read your post. I wish we had a good park around us to visit. We haven’t found a good one yet that’s suitable for a toddler which is a shame. x

There really is something magical about the woods, especially when it’s peaceful and you’re surrounded by the orange/brown colours. This one is a bit of a drive from us but definitely worth the journey. x

You know I love the woods Chloe! Lovely pictures, I’m a huge GOT and LOTR fan, so I love all those carvings. We have visited Cardinham Woods in Cornwall, but locally in Surrey, we have so many beautiful woodlands. Sarah

Thank you so much for your lovely comment. You are definitely surrounded by the best woods Sarah. I always love your pictures. We’re huge GOT and LOTR fans too so we always love seeing these carvings. My partner raves about Cardinham but I’ve never visited. It’s on the cards to see soon though! 😀 x

Aww, so sweet! I love the leaf throwing pics, Evie’s clearly having loads of fun. Looks like she’ll be a fantastic big cousin to Amelia as well, she definitely likes looking after her! Love her duffle coat, it’s so adorable! 🙂 x

Thank you so much! Evie had such a giggle. She’s so much in love with Amelia it’s really cute. The coat is sweet but why we decided to put it on her to go to the woods I have no idea. It’s brand new and as soon as Evie saw a muddy puddle and squealed with delight, I squealed in horror. Luckily it’s easy to clean because she was so muddy. Thankfully we have some practical clothes on the way soon! Hooray! x

Thank you so much for your lovely commment. The woods are definitely a lot of fun. Her coat was such a bargain for a toddler coat (well we don’t have much choice in shops in Cornwall). It was £16 from Sainsbury’s which is so good because there is a similar one in next for £30. Definitely worth it! x

Thank you so much Kerry. I’m sure there are much easier ways to do it but I’ve tried three different ways (Again their must be an easier way)

I use ‘Canva’ because you can use the same template over and over again and it’s just a case of dragging a photo onto it and changing the title text. But to make your template to start with it takes a few minutes.

When you go onto canva click on ‘Create A Design’ I normally then click on the ‘Pinterest’ one because it’s the right dimensions for me. Pick the first free layout you see and you can use it as a template. You can move around the text, change the text, add your own images and add an overlay like on mine. To add an overlay just click in the search bar and loads of options suddenly come up including shape (it’s a lot easier if you look and see, it sounds hard the way I’m explaining it).

Add a shape that you want and it gives you the option to change it’s colour and make it transparent. Then just add text on top and drag in whichever image you want each time. If you click download it just goes straight to your computer.

Some of the layouts you have to pay for and canva also do images, some are free, some you pay for. So just make sure when you’re making your picture there isn’t any dollar signs on them. They do specify which are free and which aren’t. But you can make any kind of marketing poster or image you want. It’s so addictive. Sorry for waffling. I hope all of this makes sense. If it doesn’t let me know. xx

P.s. For my feature image, on my main page I used a smaller sized rectangle template so I always have to make two images. A long one for my post and a short one for my front page. If you save the template though for both though, you never have to remake them. Just drag your new image and add your new title. x

We have recently been on a lovely autumn stroll and yes lots of leaves were thrown too:) A beautiful time of year, almost makes up for having to put my flip flops away until the summer! #whatevertheweather

You are definately not a woose being worried about a squirrel running up you, I had a pet one when I was pregnant with Sassy (someone found him in their garden when he was a couple of days old so I took him in and hand reared him/ looked after him for around 6 months) and the scratches and cuts i sustained where the worst anyone had ever seen, I constantly had germoline to hand to stop them getting nasty. He wasnt being mean or intending to hurt but because their feet are designed to hang upside dow off of branches and to run up vertical surfaces the claws are very very long and very very sharp! He was amazing and he never bit me or intentionally hurt, but our skin is alot softer than bark!

looks like you had a wonderful day! I love the autumn and leaves and walks in the woods. its beautiful.

Awwww I hope your hand heeled ok. That’s so lovely that you hand reared one. They are such beautiful animals, but you’re definitely right about the claws. One ran up my leg once, luckily I was wearing boots because they were so scratched when he ran down. That could have been my leg. It was such a beautiful day, thank you so much!!

Oh my! What a beautiful post, Chloe. I’m sure you all had a great time in the woods. Love all your photos too especially the one of little Evie throwing leaves in the air, looks like she is really enjoying it. xx

Hi! I'm Chloe; a storyteller, a mama, an obsessive coffee drinker and adventure seeker living in Cornwall.

Welcome to my blog Life Unexpected. Life Unexpected is a family, travel and career blog. It follows myself, my fiancee Aitan, my four year old daughter Evie and baby number 2 who is arriving in February 2019.

This blog has fast become a resource for busy Mums like you. I'm a work at home Mum and know all too well that sometimes its hard to balance it all.

Through this blog, I love to share tips, tricks and hacks that will hopefully make our lives that bit easier.